Bone Conduction Earpiece With Adaptive Leakage Cancellation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional single earpiece solutions for mobile devices fail to provide high-quality audio to both ears effectively, especially in noisy environments, leading to reduced intelligibility and increased safety risks due to isolation from surroundings.
Innovation Solution
An earpiece system incorporating a bone conduction speaker, an adaptive filter with adjustable impulse response, and an in-ear speaker, which processes audio signals to minimize leakage and ambient noise, allowing audio to be heard in both ears while maintaining privacy and safety.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a headset with two earpieces is used to hear voice calls in both ears, then call intelligibility and pleasantness significantly increase, but the user is isolated from surroundings which is dangerous in public places
Solution Approach 1:
The system separates the audio delivery paths: one ear receives sound through the earpiece while the other ear remains open to surroundings. This segmentation allows selective audio delivery to different ears, maintaining situational awareness while improving call quality.
Solution Approach 2:
Different quality treatments are applied to different ears: one ear receives processed audio through the earpiece with noise reduction, while the other ear naturally receives ambient sound. This local differentiation optimizes both call intelligibility and environmental awareness.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If a single earpiece is used to maintain awareness of surroundings, then safety is improved, but audio quality and call intelligibility are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The bone conduction transducer acts as an intermediary to deliver audio to the skull bones, which then conduct the sound to the inner ear. This bypasses the ear canal, allowing the ear to remain open to surroundings while still delivering high-quality audio for call intelligibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The system replaces the traditional acoustic earpiece mechanism with bone conduction technology. Instead of delivering sound through the ear canal, audio is transmitted through bone vibrations, enabling open-ear listening with maintained situational awareness.
3Loss of information
If the earpiece covers one ear to deliver audio, then audio privacy is maintained, but ambient noise is picked up by the uncovered ear reducing signal quality
Solution Approach 1:
The system converts the harmful effect of ambient noise into a beneficial feature by using the open ear to capture environmental sounds while the bone conduction path delivers clean audio signals. The microprocessor separates and processes these signals to maintain audio quality despite the open ear configuration.
Solution Approach 2:
The microprocessor continuously monitors and processes audio signals from both the bone conduction transducer and the open ear, dynamically adjusting to minimize ambient noise interference while maintaining audio privacy and call intelligibility.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The system effectively delivers high-quality audio to both ears, reducing ambient noise interference and enhancing call intelligibility without isolating the user from their surroundings, thus improving safety and user experience.
Implementation Method 1
a bone conduction speaker coupled to the audio interface for outputting an output signal; wherein the outputting of the output signal causes an audio signal to reach a first ear of a user and causes a leakage signal to reach a second ear of a user
Implementation Method 2
an adaptive filter with an adjustable impulse response for filtering the first input signal to provide a filtered signal that once played to the second ear of a user, by an in-ear speaker, reduces an audio effect of the leakage signal on the second ear of the user
Implementation Method 3
an in-ear speaker coupled to the audio interface for providing an in-ear audio signal to the second ear of a user, in response to the filtered signal and the second input signal
Implementation Method 4
an in-ear microphone for sensing a sensed audio signal
Implementation Method 5
a processor for updating an impulse response of the adaptive filter in order to reduce a contribution of the leakage signal to the sensed audio signal
Data Source
AI summary
An earpiece for providing an audio signal to two ears of a user, includes an audio interface for providing the audio signal, a bone conduction speaker coupled to the audio interface for outputting an output signal, an adaptive filter with an adjustable impulse response to provide a filtered signal that once played to the second ear of a user, by an in-ear speaker, reduces an audio effect of the leakage signal on the second ear of the user, an in-ear speaker coupled to the audio interface for providing an in-ear audio signal to the second ear of the user, in response to the filtered signal and the second input signal, an in-ear microphone for sensing a sensed audio signal, and a processor for updating an impulse response of the adaptive filter in order to reduce a contribution of the leakage signal to the sensed audio signal.